Tears of a Tiger
by kiss.her.already
Summary: After a tragedy, Artemis joins her father and becomes a master of crime. When a mysterious new rival villain joins her, Artemis begins to question what is real.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello! I've always been drawn to Artemis' character. She has a lot of death and mystery surrounding her personality and story. I hope you enjoy my first fanfiction, and please leave comments and critiques. **

Artemis stared up at the sky. The air smelled of death. Dark clouds surrounded the city, threatening to pour. She wandered the streets, her feet sub-consciously moving. Scalding water slid down her cheeks, burning her face. Artemis felt her hands shake. She opened her mouth to roar, but a strangled cry emerged from her throat instead. Her body was bruised and scraped, and caked with mud. The green cloth her uniform was made with was brown, due to all the blood.

Then, the rain fell. It started softly, then slammed harder and harder onto her. Artemis tried to run, then tripped. A voice laughed. She bit back her tears and glared, turning to face the owner of the voice.

"Funny isn't it? All that you worked for, destroyed in less then a day," the man sneered.

"What's funny you bastard? Your face or your smell?" Artemis choked back, stumbling to stand up.

"Now, now, language dear, I am your father."

Artemis shook her head as hard as she could, he was not her father! He was a horrible monster, not even capable of normal human qualities. She hated him. All he knew was death and destruction. That was all she knew as well before they helped her. And now she had failed them. After all they had done for her.

"Why are you here? What do you want?" she questioned.

"I want you to give up your hero game, now that the hero side-kicks and your mother are out of the way; you have no attachments keeping you from joining us. Join us, after all you have nothing left," her smirked.

Artemis didn't respond but stared ahead of her. She laughed bitterly up at the sky, the air was still tinted with the smell of death. Closing her eyes, she turned to the monster who called himself her father.

"Join us?" he grinned evilly.

She nodded in response, a small smile quirked at the edge of her lips.

**Thanks for reading! Please review.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Ok, the last chapter was more of a… prologue. I will update pretty quickly, just be aware, I write in shorter chapters. This one is a bit longer then the last. Hope you enjoy it! Also- just wanted to note, I will give clues about who the characters are as they enter the story, probably two new characters every chapter.**

Artemis dodged the sloppy kick and slid a knife out of her boot and held it to the boy's throat.

"Get out of here and never speak of what you just saw or I promise I will kill you," she glared down at the young teenager. The boy nodded, panic and fear clear on his face.

Artemis then disappeared into the shadows and headed back to HQ. Her side-kick, Lydia, who basically did most of the paper-work and alerted Artemis of any crime or heroes in the area, sat behind a desk with raised eyebrows.

"Wow Tigress, that was kinda harsh, I mean, he's just a kid, couldn't be more then fourteen…" she trailed off.

"You think I got to be one of the most feared villains by being nice to little kids pretending to be heroes? He was in the way," Artemis sighed. "I am leaving, I need some sleep. I expect a full report tomorrow." She headed out the door. Lydia watched her leave.

Artemis headed out into the cool night. It was mid-October, around the same time when "The Incident" happened five long years ago. The death had always haunted her. When she had decided to join her father, she was still playing hero. Thinking that she could somehow revenge the death of her team-mates and her mother, it was stupid of her to ever think that way.

A loud noise shattered the quiet evening. Artemis flipped open the communicator to see Lydia's frantic face.

"Come back here right now Tigress! There's an infiltrator, and, you know I can't fight!"

Artemis cocked her head, "How did the infiltrator get past our security? Come on, it's impossible for him or her to get to you."

Lydia didn't seem to be looking at her communicator anymore, she screamed and the screen went dark. Artemis raised an eyebrow and sprinted back to HQ. She panted as she ran faster and faster up the stairs, finally reaching the main office where she suspected the intruder was.

Then she saw him. He was dressed in all black and had a blood-red mask that covered his nose and eyes. His hair was jet-black and when she squinted they had a touch of red at the roots. Her smirked at her.

"Why Artemis! Long time no see, you've gotten sexier since I saw you last," he eyed down her skin-tight black suit, its zipper was orange and orange fabric stripes were on either sides of her legs. Her black combat boots had orange laces as well.

Artemis was nervous that he knew her real name, before she became Tigress. She tried to keep as cool as possible.

"Actually, I go by Tigress now. And who are you supposed to be? And didn't anyone tell you it's rude to break in a villains headquarters at one in the morning?"

"I'm Shadow. The reason I broke in… Well, I had an interesting thought cross my mind-"

Artemis interrupted him, "A thought crossed your mind? It much have been a long and lonely road."

Shadow rolled his eyes, "I was considering an alliance with you."

"So let me get this straight, you broke into my hideout and killed my side-kick or something, because you were _considering_ an alliance? You know what? You're a retarder motherfucker. Go screw yourself!"

Shadow ran his hand through his hair, "PMS? Or are you normally this bitchy? Well since I'm already here and I have the upper-hand, I thought you would accept me with open arms."

"Wait, you have the upper-hand? Last time I checked you are a lame villain who no one has ever heard of, that stumbled into my headquarters. What advantages could you possibly have?"

Shadow laughed," You don't know what makes me special, and that's exactly how I intend to keep it, for now."

**Yeah, Lydia's completely made up. As for Shadow, you guys know who he is, right? Please review, with questions and comments. I really appreciate how nice everyone has been, thank you so much.**


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